"Your people destroyed our homes and made us what we've become"
Disclaimer: This is an abridged and edited version of an essay I wrote in 2007. My views, and opinions have changed significantly since then.
Introduction
In the 1970’s horror film directors continued the traditional horror convention of isolation but some focused more exclusively on isolated communities, and portraying them as a potentially dangerous element to mainstream societies. These films portray families, villages and tribes of people living in remote areas, which preserve a contrasting culture to that of the central character(s) in the film which represent the dominant ideology within Western civilisation. Straw Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man and The Hills Have Eyes are all examples. The Hills Have Eyes (1977) showed the contrast between a civilised suburban family called the Carters and a feral family of mutant cannibals they encounter when they break down in the desert. The cause of the feral family’s mutations and cannibalistic tendencies is credited to the United States Military for conducting nuclear tests in the desert. Despite the fact that it is the civilised American society depicted as the cause of the problem, the villains in the film are the isolated rural family.
There are a range of theories that have been applied to the horror genre sometimes utilising psychoanalytical approaches to analyse the text from perspectives frequently associated with gender studies. However, there are few theorists who have fully considered the connotations of the social divisions implicit in the representation of isolated white communities even though they seem to be a recurring theme in horror films particularly in the 1970s and onwards. This is an area that requires research and study, particularly because it is a theme that can be seen in many films, not just in horror films from the 1970’s and onwards. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) is unlike many horror films in style, but it too depicts an isolated rural community, blinded by ignorance and blaming the arrival of an attractive urbanised modern woman for the unnaturally violent behaviour of the local birds.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was a turning point in the genre, subsequent films have drawn horror from characters whose violence is a result of their psychological state. This form of horror could be perceived as being more "realistic", but the characters in such films are rarely as deeply constructed as Norman Bates, and are often two dimensional monsters that serve merely as devices to construct or criticise an ideology just as much as the rubber monsters of old horror did:
“As the capacity or religion and its equivalents to fill this need receded with the advance of technology in the nineteenth century, the simultaneous discovery of the unconscious and the cinema released a new source of imagery for ‘rendering unto film…the immanent fears of mankind:” Cook (1999: page 196)
These psychological monsters can be used effectively to illustrate the failings of the capitalist system, as is evident in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and the Hills Have Eyes (1977). Both featuring families living in isolated rural communities who have been failed by the system and in being left behind have regressed to a primitive lifestyle which parodies the dominant culture of commerce and trade which failed them.
Notions of otherness and the concept of representation in horror as "fetishist", if accepted, can just as easily be applied to films that are intended to challenge notions of patriarchy and "civilised" behaviour. There is a tendency in modern horror to portray rural, often agricultural communities of white people in developed Western nations as primitive, inherently violent, culturally inferior, mentally deranged etc. Straw Dogs (1971), Wicker Man (1973), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) are just some of many examples that anyone familiar with the genre could offer, but these ones are relevant as they were all released in the 1970's, a time when traditional and conservative values were being challenged by the ongoing counter-culture of the sixties, the members of which were then assuming positions of power in the media. It is telling that ALL of these films have been remade in the 21st century, and all of them have gone even further to sensationalise the violent nature of rural whites, upon whom a protagonist reaps vengeance through violence. There is an underlying message in all these films, that the supposedly cultured urban peoples are in fact no better than these violent rural communities, for when they are required to defend themselves, they resort to the same kind of violence. Though actually a critique of the urban culture, this still implicitly constructs urban culture as superior to the rural.
Rather than being a manifestation of an oppressive patriarchal, white power structure intent on suppressing women and ethnic minorities, these films are in fact subversive - intended to defame and demonise traditional cultures of western societies. If an alien were to assess the quality of life in rural and urban parts of the West by watching these films, it would come to the conclusion that the cities were havens for peaceful, cultured intellectuals whereas the countryside is a dangerous place full of rapists and murderers. Crime statistics consistently show the opposite to be the case.
What is the function of such demonisation and why is it so prevalent now? Hollywood producers certainly know that remakes are a safer bet financially, but the types of films chosen also serve a political purpose intended to redefine notions of western identity and disrupt existing power structures which are based on cultural traditions.In so doing, a system of cultural hierarchy is presented that places communities whose economy is primarily agricultural, beneath those urban protagonists who are forced to correct the backwardness of the rural culture with violence.
The nature of Horror
The Horror film genre is one of the most difficult to
define. Many film genres like comedy and romance were taken directly from
theatre, others like the Western were developed specifically for cinema, but
the horror genre had its roots in European art and literature. For this reason
many film theorists will not recognise horror as a genre, preferring instead to
divide its content into sub-genres such as the ‘slasher movie’ and ‘fantasy
thriller’
“a tension remains between older
European traditions and Hollywood,
producing the problem of relating the forms which developed in the European art
cinema in terms of the fantastique or
supernatural.” Cook (page 195)
Before the 1970’s the horror genre was rarely awarded
serious analysis, however in England
it had become one of the most lucrative areas of the film industry resulting in
the acclaimed success of British Hammer Horror studios. In America the genre was also successful but was
less respected in its own right for its cultural significance, the gothic
imagery of German expressionism which is a notable convention of horror was
present in films from both sides of the Atlantic.
In the 1970’ however, the nature of the genre changed, as there were no longer
haunted houses, gothic churches and creatures from ancient European folklore,
but rather just psychotic human killers in a modern American context.
“The heritage from German
Expressionism was important because ‘the style itself is capable of infecting
almost any subject matter with its eerie tone..the sense of mystery, of lurkers
in the shadows is the constant factor” Tudor (1974) in Cook (p.195)
As a result of this change, many
of the conventions that were previously used to describe the genre, had been
made obsolete during the 1960’S and 1970’s. Psycho (1960) could be
referred to as the birth of the American
slasher movie, however, films such as these still contain many of the visual
stylistic conventions of the traditional horror genre such as suspense and the
inclusion of a female victim and can be viewed not as the birth of a new genre
but as the modernisation of one of the oldest.
“One might say that the true
subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our
civilisation represses or oppresses, its re-emergence dramatized, as in our
nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and for the happy
ending (when it exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression.”
(Wood, 1986, p 13)
The fact these particular types of
horror films are currently being remade may be an indication of their ongoing relevance
to modern society, and perhaps shows that they subvert suppressed fears in the
collective minds of 21st century film makers.
 |
| Remake of Straw Dogs (2011) in which rural men are shown to be prone to rape and lack respect for women. |
Social Anxieties depicted through Horror
The horror genre has always been
used to depict the tensions, anxieties and fears of society of the time.
Sometimes the films clearly depict situations that reinforce the dominant
ideology, while others are more subversive. In The
American Horror Film (2002) Reynold Humphries explains how the horror genre
can be used as a device with which to communicate the collective fears of
mainstream society, whilst simultaneously reinforcing dominant ideologies in
the process.
Humphries identifies Dracula
(1931) as an example of a traditional horror convention used to portray
established ideologies in the form of visual and narrative metaphor. Dracula is
an aristocratic monster from the East who preys predominantly on female
victims. To Humphries Dracula represents class dominance, patriarchy and the indiscriminate consumer capitalist, who consumes all to satisfy
unquenchable sexual desire, and this reading implies that Dracula who feeds on
both sexes is bisexual. Humphries applies both Marxist and Freudian approaches
to the villain.
“Such is the aristocratic standing of Dracula and the dream of the patriarchal capitalist who has replaced him. He is also society’s inevitable punishment for such forbidden pleasures. Just as the bourgeois thinks he alone has the right to property and luxury, obtained through the labour of those who have neither, and steps in to restrain by any means the lower orders who dare demand their share, so Dracula stands in for the punishment of our guilty desires through the terror he brings, a terror that is the fear of transgressing society’s ‘natural order’.”Humphries (2002: p.13)
Other traditional horror or
sci-fi characters such as Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(1931) transformed into cinema by James Whale, can be read as being
capitalist characters, as it is his pursuit of capitalist activities that
results in the horrific creation of his monster. As with Stoker’s Dracula this reading is critical of
capitalism but rather than playing on the fear of transgressing the capitalist
hierarchy imposed on society, it is a fear of the technological advances that
capitalism requires are made in the name of progress. Frankenstein’s monster is
then a symbol of the proletariat rising against its master, after being forced
to work against its will, and embodies the worker's fear of redundancy.
“The monster is thus the signifier of alienation as he has no identity outside that given to him by his creator (and Frankenstein behaves like God). He is also its signifier in as much as he is made up of bits and pieces; fragments of other people. Thus does the capitalist Frankenstein live off literally dead workers, getting them to work twice: The first time they get some payment for their trouble, but once dead they can be used at will.”Humphries (2002: p. 15)
The traditional horror themes of supernatural monsters are
less commonly present in modern horror, although just as Frankenstein and
Dracula are representations of possible negative products of capitalism, so too are films like the Hills Have Eyes critiques of the
alienation caused by industrial progress in the 20th century and a reflection
of associated social anxieties.
“As the capacity of religion and its equivalents to fill this need receded with the advance of technology in the nineteenth century, the simultaneous discovery of the unconscious and the cinema released a new source of imagery for ‘rendering unto film…the immanent fears of mankind:” Cook (1999: p.96)
Psycho (1960) was set a trend in the genre continued in more recent films such as Saw 3 (2006) in which the violence and horror of the villains is a result of their psychological derangement. Rather than seeming more human, the shallow characters in such films are often two dimensional monsters that serve merely as devices to construct or
criticise an ideology as much as those monsters of the old horror did.
“When villains and victims are
such shadowy, undeveloped characters and are portrayed equally
unsympathetically, narcissistic identification on the part of the audience
becomes increasingly difficult.” Modelski in Braudy and Cohen (p.770)
Tarratt (1984) writes about the preoccupation such films
have with the problem of reconciling the desires of the individual as both sexual
animal and social being ( p 348) she writes with reference to The Thing From Another World (1951), another film featuring monsters in an isolated setting, “The Arctic landscape
provides an objective correlative for his emotional and sexual life, repressed
in the all male disciplined environment of an isolated base” (p338) These
psychological monsters can be used effectively to illustrate the failings of
the capitalist system, as is evident in two of my key film texts The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and
the The Hills Have Eyes (1977). Both feature white families living in isolated
rural communities who have been failed by the system and in being left behind
have regressed to a primitive lifestyle which ironically echoes the mainstream
system of commerce, trade and family values which the narrative implies has failed them.
“This is precisely the fate that
befell Leatherface and his family, made redundant when the slaughterhouse
became automated, technological progress enabling the owners to increase
production and cut down the work force.” Humphries (2002:p.23)
‘Otherness’ in
horror.
The image of the female victim is a convention of the
horror genre. There is a great deal of theory regarding the feminist approach
to the horror genre, as it is a genre criticised by feminist theorists such as Cynthia
Freeland for catering exclusively toward a male audience and in the process reinforcing
the so called patriarchal ideals of male dominated capitalism.
“The tension
arising between the viewers desire to look and the ongoing narrative of the film
is especially acute in the horror film. Typically in horror, the woman or
visual object is also the chief victim sacrificed to the narrative desire to
know about the monster. Horror flirts directly with the threat of castration
underlying the fetish or visual appearance of the woman.” Freeland (1994) in
Braudy & Cohen (p.43)
Yet she fails to address the fact that the white rural communities, particularly the men, are depicted as the problematic and violent elements in all these films. The family unit is also demonised and is an important part of much
horror narrative. The family in Texas
Chainsaw Massacre can be read as a criticism of capitalist notions of family
values, as it is a critical and fetishist representation of the institution of the family.
“Robin Wood has analyzed the film
as embodying a critique of capitalism, since the film shows the horror both of
people quite literally living off other people, and of the institution of the
family, since it implies that the monster is family.” Braudy & Cohen 2004
(p.768)
Laura Mulvey (1975) is among the first of many feminist film
theorists who applied Freud’s notion of scopophilia to a gendered cinematic
context. Scopophilia is Freud’s theory (1905) that there is pleasure to be
derived in looking at someone as well as being looked at. Mulvey’s critique is
based on the claim that the cinematic gaze constructed onscreen is gendered
to be that of male observing female.
“The cinema offers a number of
possible pleasures. One is scopophilia. There are circumstances in which
looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formation there
is a pleasure in being looked at. Originally, in his Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the
component instincts of sexuality which exist as drives quite independently of
the erotogenic zones. At this point he associated scopophilia with taking other
people as objects.” Mulvey (1975)
Women are frequently portrayed as an ‘other’ in horror films, and in the context of an alleged patriarchal ideology, the spectacle of the female is there to be looked at in the sense that it represents what Freud identified as the male fear of castration. This means that all forms of cinematic representation are to some extent fetishist in the sense that they are human reconstructions of reality, therefore subject to the psychological fears and repressed anxieties of the human psyche identified by Freud (1905). In King Kong, when the ape looks into the eyes of the central female character, Ann, it is presumed that it is sexually attracted to the woman; Humphries provides an alternative explanation believing that Kong is in fact female, in keeping with the concept of women as ‘other’:
“Kong pursuing Ann is Kong seeing in Ann a kindred spirit; someone exploited by capital and patriarchy. Kong’s ‘love’ for Ann is an early form of female bonding, neglected in favour of its male counterpart.” Humphries (2002: p.24)
This theory identifies both the monster and the women as
representative of the male fear of castration, each is symbolic of otherness.
The power of the monster may lie, not in its castration, but in its difference to
the dominant image of the human male (Williams in Cook, 1999, page 200) just as
the women’s power lies in her difference or otherness in relation to the male. The monster functions as a spectacle not only
for the male audience but also for the female onscreen.
“This reading of the castration scenario then enables Williams to account for several aspects of the classic horror film. The ‘vindictive destruction of the monster’ the frequent sympathy of the female characters for the plight of the monster, their similar constitution as an exhibitionist object by the desiring look of the male,”Cook (1999:p.200)
When the monster is shown through the eyes of a woman it is
an identification of their shared difference. Isolated white rural communities in horror films are, by this same logic,
constructed as ‘other’. The ‘monsters’ in The Hills Have Eyes, for example, although technically human, can
be interpreted in the same way as King
Kong.
“Film monsters should be regarded
as embodiments of women’s virginal sexual fantasies-a cross between fear and
desire.” Tarratt (p.330)
The theme of otherness and difference and the concept of
representation in horror as a fetishist concept is central to the study
regarding the representation of the isolated communities.
The Theme of Isolation
The theme of isolation is recurrent in the horror genre. Its
origins may be attributed to the intent of the genre itself to ‘horrify’. An
isolated setting puts the protagonist in a situation where they must deal with
danger themselves without the aid of the mainstream civilised community on
which the character had previously depended.
“Ever since the ghost of Hamlet’s father stalked the battlements of Elsinore castle, the stock in trade of horror romanticism has consisted of the inhabitants, properties and atmosphere of the haunted house.” Tibbetts in Chibnall (2002: p.99)
This convention is manifested in some of horror’s most
recognisable scenery, from Carfax Abbey in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) to the eerie Bates Motel in Psycho (1960) but the theme has more significance to this study in
reference to the specific films which feature representation of the communities
that occupy these isolated settings. Although old films do feature monsters or individuals that are isolated from humanity and society,
this is not necessarily the cause of their problematic behaviour. Norman Bates’
mental state is induced by his childhood and relationship with his Mother,
whereas monsters like Dracula are not products of their environments, but
merely manifestations of subconscious fear, therefore devoid of the direct
influence of society.
The families in the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre and the Hills Have
Eyes are both bi-products of an advancing civilisation that leaves behind
those who cannot adapt to change. This type of horror in which a ‘normal’
community are contrasted with a rural isolated one offers parallels and
contradictions between perceived notions of civilised behaviour and primitive
instincts.
The representation of these communities as being
significantly different culturally from the characters representing mainstream
civilised modern society is similar to the way cinema portrays racial
difference. The appearance and language used by the rural characters betrays an
institutionalised belief in the superiority of the urbanised, modern society
over the "primitive" rural white communities they oppose. This device of cinematic representation can be used to attack any ethnic group, including the white proletariat.
“In popular representations, as in
the world, identity politics is likely to go both ways, to become either a site
for the progressive use of diversity or an opportunity for the conservative
management of difference within existing power structures.” Willis (1997: page
2)
Analysis
Texts in Context
The three texts on which this study is focused, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes and The Wicker Man (which will henceforth
be referred to as Texas, Hills and Wicker Man respectively) have been
selected on the basis of their content, plots, time of creation and tendency to
utilise the potential of cinema to offer a critique of capitalism. In each film
there is a confrontation between two separate cultures, one of which, on a
journey away from home, representing the civilised society from which they
came, the other an "otherised" rural white community, isolated from
mainstream society and constructed as culturally opposed to those representing
the dominant ideology.
“The convention of the civilised man forced to violence is familiar in most manly movie genres, but rarely has it been presented as skilfully as it has here. The heroes of Deliverance and Hills Have Eyes are given no choice but to fight and kill, attacked suddenly by monstrous villains who seem hardly human” Fenton & Flint (p.120)
The isolated rural communities in each film have been used
as a device with which to parody the institutions of patriarchal capitalism
(family in Hills and Texas, religion in Wicker Man) whilst the plot of each film also offers criticism of
such institutions. (The police in Wicker
Man and Hills, U.S. Military in Hills, meat production as extension of
farming and rural industry in Texas). This study will focus on scenes from
each film that provide an introduction to the isolated communities through
dialogue. The events on screen during theses scenes combined with the
implications of the dialogue can be analysed for the purpose of understanding
how the identities of these isolated communities are constructed and
represented. The study will then consider the ideological concerns raised by
the texts, and whether negative representations of rural white communities in cinema
as a device to offer critique of capitalist institutions may paradoxically
reinforce dominant ideological discourse with regards to the cultural
inferiority of rural communities in comparison to their urban counterparts.
Where Beauty meets Beast
In Hills (1977) there is a key scene in which the history of the feral
family and how they came to be is revealed. The grandfather of the feral
family, Fred, meets the grandfather of the Carters, big Bob. Bob enters Fred’s
gas station looking for help only to be shot at by the hillbilly stereotype
character Fred, who is dressed in a poorly fitted plaid shirt and worn jeans,
Fred then attempts to hang himself as a result of mistaking big Bob Carter for
his murderous feral son Jupiter. At this stage the audience are already invited
to make assumptions about the rural community and this display of paranoid
mistrust. Fred explains to Bob that this rural community was newly constructed
in the 1930’s and he had a wife and child, but his wife’s second child was
mutated.
FRED: When Martha had this one something went wrong, this thing she give me…something happened. He was so big he came out sideways and almost tore his poor Mother apart. He weighed 20lbs and was hairy as a monkey. When he was ten years old, he was bigger than I was. Accidents were happening all the time. Dogs falling in the well, I even found chickens with their heads bit off. Then in August in ‘39 I was in town getting supplies, and the whole damn house burnt to the ground, my little baby girl was a cinder when I found her, but this monster kid wasn’t even singed, I knew he done it, I hit him with a tire iron and I split his face right open.
This mutation is attributed to the
fact revealed by Bob’s daughter at the start of the film that the area was used
by the military as a nuclear testing range. As this dialogue ends, Fred’s son
Jupiter breaks through the glass window of the house, pulls his father out,
kills him with a tire iron and then nails him to a door. The dialogue between
the two father figures is significant, Fred is a parody of Bob, Bob is an ex
police officer and a family man, an authority and representative of the system
of law that governs mainstream America. Fred reveals that he too had a family,
but it was lost as a result of this mutant child. From the actor’s expression
and the script, it is likely that Bob is dubious of the existence of Jupiter. The fact that Fred was willing to attempt to murder his own son can be read as
a failure of the family as a capitalist institution, it also encourages the
audience to perceive Fred as being more primitive and perhaps murderous than
Bob. Earlier in the film Bob refers to his career using racist and derogatory
terminology. “25 years I’m a cop in the worst goddamn precinct in Cleveland. Niggers shoot
arrows at me, hillbillies throw dogs off the roof at me.” Both
African-Americans and rural Americans are connected in his speech as being
problematic towards the urbanised ideology that the police
uphold.
The first meeting in Hills is comparable with a similar scene in Texas in which the ‘civilised’ members of mainstream society come into contact with a member of a family of cannibals. As five fashionable seventies youths travel past a cattle slaughterhouse on their way to visit Franklin’s grandfather’s house in the Texas countryside, after attending a concert, they see a hitchhiker and decide to pick him up.
The first meeting in Hills is comparable with a similar scene in Texas in which the ‘civilised’ members of mainstream society come into contact with a member of a family of cannibals. As five fashionable seventies youths travel past a cattle slaughterhouse on their way to visit Franklin’s grandfather’s house in the Texas countryside, after attending a concert, they see a hitchhiker and decide to pick him up.
FRANKLIN: I think we just picked up Dracula.
JERRY: Where're you heading, man?
FRANKLIN: You work at that place?
HITCHHIKER: Don't.
PAM: How did you get stuck out here?
HITCHHIKER: I was at the slaughterhouse.
FRANKLIN: I got an uncle that works at a slaughterhouse.
HITCHHIKER: My brother worked there, my grandfather, too. My family's always been in beef.
KIRK: a whole family of Draculas.
JERRY: Hey man, did you go into that slaughter room or whatever they call it? Where they shoot the cattle with that air gun thing?
HITCHHIKER: That gun is no good.
FRANKLIN: I was in there once with my uncle.
HITCHHIKER: With the sledge! That was better. They died better that way.
FRANKILN: How come? I thought the gun was better.
HITCHHIKER: Oh no. With the new way people were put out of jobs
The hitchhiker takes a photograph of Franklin, then when the
young people refuse to pay $2 for it, he sets it alight using some powder wrapped in foil, cuts his hand open with a knife then cuts Franklins arm
and when he is kicked out the vehicle he paints a symbol in blood on
its side. Prior to picking up the hitchhiker Pam had been discussing astrology,
there is an obvious parallel between the implied belief in magic of the hitchhiker
and the girl’s belief in astrology. Humphries identifies the hitchhiker's belief in magic
as being an extension of the capitalist ideal of property.
“it suggests a belief in magic,
in the possibility of ‘possessing’ someone, which in turn must be seen as a
form of control identical to that of possessing wealth or, by extension, the
bodies of the workers whose labour is turned into surplus value. He is no more
imbalanced than the girl who believes in the stars and their control over our
lives”
Humphries (2002:p.124)
A similar ironic comparison is at
work in British horror film The Wicker
Man, in which a Christian Scottish police officer condemns the beliefs of
an island of pagans. The first meeting of the mainstream with the marginalised
in these films illuminates both differences and paradoxical similarities. Wicker Man provides insight in its
opening sequence in which Sergeant Howie arrives at Summers Isle off the West
Coast of Scotland. The film depicts the locals' pagan beliefs in contrast to
Sergeant Howie’s Christian beliefs, which can be considered as a metaphor for
social and political upheaval of the time in regards to challenging the institutions
such as religion whose ideology governs the lives of others.
“the conflict between old and new
faith was a way of talking about the relationship between the upheavals of the
late 1960s – the emergence of youth and ‘counter’ cultures, permissiveness, the
possibility of revolution – and the backlash of the 1970s represented, in
particular, by the ‘law and order’ agenda of the new Heath government. In The Wicker Man we find a puritanical
male authority figure pitted against a Dionysian cult,” Hunt in Chibnall
(2002:p.93)
The first shot we see of the island, a flag of the pagan sun god, draws attention to the difference of the
community’s religious beliefs from the Christian ideology from which
they are isolated. The camera pans down to reveal a plane landing on the water,
surrounded by Scottish hills, reinforcing the feeling of isolation
created by the montage of lonely landscape shots which the film opens with.
Sergeant Howie rolls down the window and shouts to a small crowd of men
gathering at the island’s harbour. The harbour master initially refuses to
allow the sergeant on the island as it is private property. As they speak, four
more men arrive and join the small crowd of old men as if they have nothing
better to do with their time than satisfy idle curiosity. The local men at the
harbour are quite old, wear old moth bitten clothes and are unshaven; they have
weathered faces and grey hair, each fulfilling the dominant stereotypical image
of rural British communities.
As the locals send a dinghy, a montage of the island harbour
area is shown. The montage illustrates the significant cultural difference of
the community from the culture of the mainland which sergeant Howie represents.
A man rides a horse through the street without a saddle or helmet, there are no
automobiles visible, the houses are traditional Scottish style built of granite. In front of the houses tropical palm trees grow, young girls open windows and
lean out to observe the Sergeant's arrival. The wooden dinghy has an eye painted
on the side which also seems to be a pagan symbol. When shown immediately after
the shot of the women observing the sergeant, it becomes a symbol to remind
the audience that the sergeant is being watched by the curious and ‘primitive’
locals.
Just as in traditional horror, where women are constructed as
representative of their difference to men, the isolated communities
depicted in 1970s horror films like Texas are constructed like women as ‘other’. The
‘monsters’ in Hills,
although human, can be interpreted in the same way as Williams’ (Cook, 1999,
page 200) feminised reading of King Kong, as
mentioned in the literature review. But there is no clear moment when the
civilised females appear to identify with the feral family. This is
because as urban women they still see the ferals as more other than their own gender. It is significant that in both versions of Hills, the young female feral, Ruby, identifies
with the ‘civilised’ family, through sympathy for the plight of the baby, which
suggest that she identifies with her urban oppressors, in both versions abandoning her
fellow ferals and family members in favour of assisting the civilised family.
Women function primarily as victims in the originals of Hills and Texas, where they are raped, tortured, killed, chased and eaten by the
primitive cannibal families whose treatment of women and desire to consume them
in every sense of the word, is a reflection of the capitalist society
from which they are excluded.
The Wicker Man
provides a different representation of women, they are not victims in a
conventional sense, rather aggressors who participate in the organised deception
of an external authority. They are shown to be sexually liberated in both versions of this film.
This does not mean that the female characters escape sexual
objectification. Britt Elkland’s character, the land lords daughter, performs a
ritualistic mating dance naked while the men at the pub all sing a song in tribute
to her promiscuity. It is revealed in the school scene that the female children are
encouraged to worship the phallus in the form of the traditional maypole. Sgt
Howie as a practicing Christian is appalled by this pagan practice, yet one wonders wheher worship of a phallus should be read as female liberation or subjugation.
Comparison of 1970’s
Horror Films and their 21st Century Remakes
Hills, Texas and Wicker Man were all successful films in
their time, and each has also become a cult classic. As mentioned in the
literature review, the remaking of such films is a low risk and lucrative area
of investment. For these films to achieve success a second time in the 21st
century, their content must be relevant to the experiences of modern audiences.
It could be argued that some of the issues raised by these films are still
relevant today, issues such as failure of the family unit, fear of the unknown,
the advance of technology and its effect on the manual workforce, danger of
obedience to violent religion and marginalisation of rural communities. However each of the remakes includes
significant alterations to their originals. It is safe to assume that any
changes made would be an attempt to make the films more palatable to the tastes
of modern audiences.
The Hills Have Eyes
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
considers the fear of nuclear testing more than its original, it starts with a
montage of shocking imagery of nuclear explosions and mutant still births, this
theme is continued throughout the film as the feral family is replaced by an
entire town of cannibals who are also hideously mutated. The inclusion of a
more prominent nuclear theme in this version can be read as a reflection of
increasing fear of nuclear war in the 21st century. The cause for
the existence of the feral community is not a result of a dysfunctional family
but entirely the fault of the military, and government for allowing nuclear
testing in the American countryside, a point made in a speech by one of the
mutants to the father of the stolen baby, Doug Bukowski.
“Your people asked our families
to leave. So we hid in the mines, and you brought out your bombs and turned
everything to ashes! You destroyed our homes and made us what we've become.”
Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Other significant changes made to the plot include a far
more frictional relationship between Bob the ex -police officer and his son in
law Doug, which is perhaps a reflection of the decomposition of family ideals
in the West. The gas pump attendant who tries to save the family in the
original deceives them into taking a wrong road in this version which leads to
the caravan crashing, the crash is
caused by the military in the original but in this version the cannibals have a
specialised device for immobilising vehicles.
The cannibals are more violent, more grotesque and less human
in this version; the parody is made less significant between the two families,
as the cannibals do not exist in a single family unit but as an entire
community. The female cannibal known as Ruby assists the ‘civilised’ family in
this film as well as the original, the original film implies that Ruby will
join the mainstream society for a new life, in the remake she kills herself and
her brother in order to save the life of the ‘civilised’ family’s baby. This
selfless act seems less plausible than the ending of the original and is
certainly less optimistic in its outlook with regards to the reincorporation of
marginalised communities into the mainstream.
Both films end with Doug brutally murdering members of the
isolated rural community, the original ends with Doug smashing the skull of the
feral named Mars, the screen freezes and turns red, then the credits roll
accompanied by chilling music, as the audience realises that the so called
civilised family are no different to the ferals who have adopted violence as a
means of survival. In the remake, when Doug kills the cannibals and retrieves
the baby, there is triumphant fanfare as if he has done something noble. This
ending is more in keeping with the Hollywood
convention of a happy ending; the final shot is a POV looking at the family
through binoculars, thus opening up the possibility of a sequel, but making no
conclusions about the issues the film raises at the start with regards to
nuclear testing and the American military.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) has many
significant changes to plot from its original. All the characters and names are
different with the exception of Leatherface, however whereas in the original he
wears the skin of his mothers face, in a twisted reference to Freudian
psychology, in this version his face is attributed to a skin condition he has
had since a child, his mask is made from the skin of an anonymous male victim.
The young people in the van are returning from Mexico carrying illegal drugs when
they pickup a woman who kills herself and as a result they have to contact the
local sheriff who is in fact Leatherface’s brother and also a violent
sociopath. This is perhaps an indication that the integrity of the police force
in America
has become unreliable, to the point where modern cinema audiences will accept
the concept of a police sheriff who is a member of a family of murderers.
Although the film indicates he may be falsely posing as a police officer, the
integrity of the police is still being brought into question.
There are several indications that the rural community are
more primitive than the ‘civilised’ youths, Leatherface’s mother sells meat and
leaves the food un-refrigerated and covered in flies, it is as if she has no
knowledge of basic hygiene despite the fact that purveying meat products is her
job. Later the youths encounter a young boy, whose teeth are crooked and eyes
are crossed, he hides in the shadows, crawling around like a beast. The rural
family is much larger than the four of the original, there are seven plus a
baby they have stolen from one of their victims, three of them are women, and
their motivation for murder is not clearly attributed to being made redundant
by the slaughterhouse. When Erin pleads for mercy the mother of Leatherface
says to her “I know your kind, nothing but cruelty and ridicule for my boy, all
the time he was growing up’ This perhaps implies that the activities of the
murderous family are a direct result of living in an isolated community.
Despite a scene in which the grandson in the rural family
assists Erin’s escape from the basement of the
house, the representation of rural communities in this film is by no means more
positive than in the original. There are no positive rural characters like in
the first, local men warning the youths of danger in the area, every rural
character turns out to be a member of the murdering family. Characterisation of
members of the rural community is brief and vague making narcissistic
identification on the part of the audience difficult.”(Modelski in Braudy.
p.770)
The Wicker Man
The most notable point of difference in The Wicker Man (2006) from its 1973 original is that the island
community is a matriarchy. The island is off the coast of Washington
state, America as opposed to
Scotland
in an effort to draw in more revenue from the prioritised American market. Lord
Summersisle is changed to Sister Summersisle, and the men are those who are
marginalised in this community, serving only the purpose of procreation and
obedience to the will of Sister Summersisle as is explained by one male
resident “We procreate because it is the will of the goddess.”
“it would seem reasonable for us to expect more recent forms
of horror to reflect the current state of public knowledge and scientific
theorizing about sex.” Freeland in Braudy & Cohen (p.750)
The scene in which the protagonist Edward Malus arrives in
the harbour area is very similar to its original, the script is maintained
almost exactly, but rather than a group of elderly men warning the officer
away, it is a group of middle aged women. They wear only clothes made of
leather and wool and are very crude in style; the clothing serves as a visual
indicator to remind the viewer of the cultural superiority of the culture of
mainland America
over this primitive colony. There are two men present behind the women, they
say nothing but hold a bag which drips with blood, and writhes about as if
there is an animal inside. This change to the scene illuminates the
subordination of men on the island and also hints at the fact that they belong
to a violent community. There are indications that the islanders are inbred,
there are several women who look very similar, Malus confuses them with each
other, there is also a bizarre pair of blind twins and a man covered in boils.
This implies that isolated communities are genetically inferior to those of the
mainstream society.
This oppressive matriarchy is far more violent than the
community depicted in the original, as is shown when the eyes and mouth of a
pilot are sewn shut, and also when Edward Malus (who is the equivalent of
Sergeant Howie) resists the will of the locals he is attacked by several
members of the community. Edward Malus is a police officer like sergeant Howie;
he is not brought to the island on police business but as a result of his ex
fiancée who is also the daughter of Sister Summersisle contacting him regarding
her supposedly missing child Rowan. The scene in the school is similar however
the girls are not asked about the maypole, but the image of the male, rather
than answering that the maypole represents the phallic symbol, they say it is
men themselves who serve as nothing but representations of the phallus.
Malus, just as Howie in the original is representative of
state authority and the institution of law enforcement, the fact he is there on
private business it could be argued, excuses the institution by whom he is
employed of the violent acts he committed against the women of the island.
Malus is not the straight laced, Christian virgin that Sergeant Howie is; Malus
suffers from hallucinations, anxiety and is far more violent than Howie. There
is no mention of his spiritual beliefs but he uses Christian expletives such as
“God Damn it.” In the seventies Howie was a valid example of how a police
officer could be, the changes made in the remake to the protagonists character
are significant as they are most likely an attempt to make him easier for the
audience to identify with. Many Americans suffer from depression, take
medication and are un-specific about their exact spiritual beliefs just as
Edward Malus is.
The depiction of a microcosm society ruled by women, being
dysfunctional, violent and primitive could be considered a reaction to the
increasing amounts of women who are achieving positions of power in the 21st
century. The matriarchal society is constructed as failing in all the areas
that the mainstream patriarchal society of the mainland succeeds and portrays a
sexist warning about awarding positions of responsibility and power to females.
Conclusions
The horror films of the 1970s that this study has analyzed
all include a community that has been isolated from mainstream society and is
then visited by people representative of the mainstream, patriarchal, urbanised
capitalist society from which they are marginalised. This style of horror film
enables a clear contrast between two opposing cultures and serves the purpose
of offering a critique of the dominant ideology and social commentary on a
number of institutions that govern the lives of most people living in Western
civilisation. What the analysis has shown is that negative representations of
those who live on the outskirts of mainstream society, can reinforce the
discourse of mainstream society by depicting such cultures and communities as
being culturally and even genetically inferior to the culture and people of
mainstream society.
The feral family depicted in The Hills Have Eyes (1977) are all negative representations of
rural communities, Fred who tries to escape his son and his cannibal family is
a negative representation despite trying to assist the Carter family, he is
shown to be paranoid and mistrustful, as well as attempting to kill his own
child, Fred’s failure as a Father is parodied by Bob Carters failure to protect
his family from the cannibals, and his failure as a policeman when he reveals
his prejudice for both rural Americans and African-Americans.
The feral female named Ruby helps the Carter family get
their baby back, showing instinctive remorse for the culture on which she has
been raised and acceptance of her role as a female assigned to her by
capitalist patriarchy; at the start of the film she says to Fred that she wants
to be a part of mainstream society. Despite her compassion for human life Ruby
is a negative rural representation, she has never experienced the lifestyle of
mainstream society, yet she still craves it and is willing to help kill her own
brother Mars in order to join the ‘civilised’ family and abandon her family and
its ‘primitive’ culture.
The film shows that the two families are both essentially
savage when forced to rely on their primitive instincts to survive, thus
destroying the serenity of the middle class American ideal that the Carter
family represented at the start of the film. The mutation of Jupiter and his
children is attributed to the United States Military for conducting nuclear
experiments in the desert, thus it is the feral family who are in fact the
victims, the depiction of these victims of society as aggressors who attack,
kill and eat other humans is a paradoxical contrast to the ideals of the
capitalist society of which they are victims, capitalism is dependent on
consumerism and the feral family take and consume whatever they can without
consideration for the moral implications of their actions.
Similar parallels are at work in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). The scene in which the young
travellers pick up the hitchhiker outside the slaughterhouse offers a contrast
between the superstitious beliefs of the seventies youth who talks of astrology
and the belief in magic implied by the hitchhiker who ritualistically burns a
photograph of Franklin, an attempt at gaining control of someone, in a sense
possessing them in the same way capitalism encourages the possession of wealth and
things or of workers whose labour can be used to generate wealth.
The Wicker Man
offers a parody of mainstream and marginalised religious groups. Sergeant Howie
sees the pagan community’s worship of gods in an effort to achieve a more fruitful
harvest as insane; however he does not see the similarities between this small
community and the Christian society he is representing. The Wicker Man depicts the pagan community as murderous,
deceptive and misguided as a result of the aristocratic Lord Summersisle
encouraging the local community to follow the ways of the ‘old gods’ as his
father had encouraged them to. There is no mention of the rural community
resisting the religion being forced on them, or of them using their knowledge
of agriculture to remedy failing crops as opposed to belief in superstition and
religion. The rural working class community are completely subservient to their
authority. Their planned murder of a police sergeant could be interpreted as a
working class uprising against institutional authority if it weren’t for the
fact they are only involved in the sacrifice out of obedience to aristocracy
and to religion.
Changing Representations
“The radicalism of so much horror
throughout the 70s can hardly come as a surprise; the political climate
militated in favour of dystopic visions of society. Considerably more
surprising is the continuation of this trend into the early 90s, in the light
of a conservative backlash represented in aspects of the ‘slasher’ movie from
the end of the 70s” Humphries (2002:p.138)
This trend Humphries speaks of has continued into the 21st
century, and if the radicalism of horror in the 1970s was a reflection of the
political climate of the time, it could also be argued that the 21st
century remakes of these films are a reflection of the current political
climate, and that the films reflect the subconscious fears of modern society.
The fact that all three of the remakes are more violent than
their originals is worthy of notation. This can be read as reflecting the
rising levels of violent crime reported in both America and Britain or as a
reflection of the extreme violence taking place in the Middle East at the hands
of the American, Israeli and British military.
The remake of Hills (2006)
features the effects of nuclear testing more prominently than the original and
may be read as evidence that the threat of nuclear war and the danger of
nuclear weapons are still a concern in the collective minds of Western society.
The cannibals are not merely one family but an entire community, and are far
more mutated and monstrous than those of the original; this makes
identification with the rural community difficult for the audience. The
grotesque mutation reinforces the fear of nuclear weapons, as it is radiation
that has caused the mutation, however depiction of the rural community as
monsters dehumanises them, and is therefore a negative representation of a
victimised rural community. The female feral Ruby gives her own life to protect
the ‘civilised’ in this version thus destroying the potential for uniting the
two separate cultures, the violence used by the ‘civilised’ family to protect
themselves is glorified whereas the visual language of the original implied it
was condemned. There are no positive rural characters in the film.
In the remake of Texas (2003) there are no positive rural
characters either, every rural character is a member of the murderous family
which is much larger than in the original. The responsibility for the updating
of technology in the slaughterhouse being a cause for the family’s
marginalisation is not included, the fact that Leather face was bullied in
school as a result of a skin condition is shown to be a cause of anger for
which the family want revenge, and exact it on those they perceive as belonging
to mainstream American culture. One of the ‘primitive’ family is a policeman,
this reflects changing attitudes toward institutional authority, although the
film is set in the 1970s it still reflects a mistrust of the police, by depicting
a renegade redneck posing as a sheriff and killing whoever he chooses without
being brought to justice.
The Wicker Man (2006) portrays women as problematic when in a
position of power. The matriarchal society is depicted as being entirely
inferior to the mainstream American society the islanders are isolated from.
The location is changed from Scotland to America in an effort to make the film
more relevant to American audiences, and whereas in the original women on the
island are subordinate to male domination, in this version the matriarchal
society subordinates men as being useful only for breeding and physical labour.
This implies that women are less moderate leaders but may also be a reflection
of the way women are subordinate in mainstream patriarchal culture.
The community are depicted as being genetically inferior to
the people of mainstream America
as a result of inbreeding, depicted through the inclusion of multiple sets of
twins, one pair of which being blind. The violent oppressive matriarchal
society viciously torture and kill Edward Malus who represents patriarchy and
law, this may be a reflection of the fear for the increasing power awarded to women as a result of
the women’s movements of the 20th century. Depicting a failing matriarchal
society through film can be read as symbolic reinforcement of the superiority
of the patriarchal society. The failing crops, violent traditions and
primitive religion adopted by the locals all combine to constitute a negative
representation of a rural community existing outside mainstream capitalist
society although in this case with a more gendered focus than the original film.
This study has shown that the horror genre was reinvented
during the 1970’s to reflect ideological concerns of the era, and that the 21st
century remakes of films from this era are significant as they show that the
subconscious anxieties in the collective minds of audiences of the 1970s are
still relevant to modern audiences. These remakes also show changing perspectives
towards rural communities, they are shown to be more violent, less human and
more corrupt than the same characters were in the previous films, this may be
because modern audiences demand more violent cinema for entertainment, or it
may be a result of increasing mistrust towards any culture or community
constructed outside the discourse of the dominant mainstream ideology of
urbanised capitalism and Christianity.
These films have used examples of isolated small rural communities
as a cinematic device to parody the wrongdoings of mainstream society and its
institutions of power. The negative representations of rural communities in The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw
Massacre, The Wicker Man and their more recent remakes serve the purpose of
offering a critique of the dominant Western ideology whilst simultaneously
reinforcing the same ideology’s stereotypical views with regards to rural
white communities, and the cultural superiority of urban liberal capitalism.
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Filmography
Alien Ridley
Scott 1979
The Birds Alfred
Hitchcock 1963
Cannibal Holocaust Ruggero Deodato 1980
Dawn of the Dead George.A.Romero 1978
Dracula Tod
Browning 1931
Deliverance John
Boorman 1972
The Exorcist William
Friedkin 1973
Frankenstein James
Whale 1931
The Hills Have Eyes Wes
Craven 1977
The Hills Have Eyes Alex
Aja 2006
The House on Haunted Hill William
Castle 1958
King Kong Merian.C.Cooper
1933
Le Manoir du diable Gerorges
Méliès 1896
Nosferatu F.W.Murnan 1922
Psycho Alfred
Hitchcock 1960
Saw 3 Darren
Lynn Bousman 2006
Straw Dogs Sam
Peckinpah 1971
Star Wars George
Lucas 1977
The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre Tobe
Hooper 1974
The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre Marcus
Nispel 2003
The Thing from another World Christian
Nyby 1951
The Wicker Man Robin
Hardy 1973
The Wicker Man Neil
Labute 2006
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